I have a maple barley wine in bottles now that is nice. Not much in the way of maple flavour. it's there but super subtle. About half the people that taste it taste the maple. I used about 2 lbs overall, including priming with it. When I do it again I will up the maple to 3 or even 4 pounds. but that starts to get pricey at 11 bucks a pound for grade B. Use grade B darkest amber you can find.I wouldn't even bother with grade A or fancy you won't get any flavour. If you have friends in the northeast US, or southeast canada, hit them up. Otherwise you might be able to either find or order it from your local food coop or similar.

Some might suggest maple extract or fenugreek but I am from Vermont and that is just wrong.

I made the BYO TommyKnocker Imperial Nut Brown clone last year. It was quite good and the maple flavor came through nicely . . not over the top. I served it at the Tennessee Cigar and Brewfest and it was one of the first kegs to go.

I made the BYO TommyKnocker Imperial Nut Brown clone last year. It was quite good and the maple flavor came through nicely . . not over the top. I served it at the Tennessee Cigar and Brewfest and it was one of the first kegs to go.

I put a quart of grade B syrup in 5 gallons of porter and liked it. Post-fermentation, the syrup has more of a woody than typical maple flavor. To maximize maple flavor, I'd recommend any combination of:- add syrup to fermenter after peak krausen- ferment as cool as possible- residual sweetness should bring out the maple, so reduce IBU- go easy on flavor/aroma hops, they'll compete with the maple

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I made the BYO TommyKnocker Imperial Nut Brown clone last year. It was quite good and the maple flavor came through nicely . . not over the top. I served it at the Tennessee Cigar and Brewfest and it was one of the first kegs to go.

I just finished up two brews with maple syrup. One was a brown ale recipe from Sam at DFH in his book Extreme Brewing and another was my ham-fisted attempt at a Founder's CBS clone. The brown had an OG of 1.066 and called for 8oz in a 5g batch while the stout was pretty big and I used 12 oz in a 3g batch. In both cases the maple is there if you close your eyes and hope for it but not exactly front and center. However, both were Grade A and I have since learned that Grade B is the way to go for mapley-goodness.

Maple ferments pretty much straight through, so don't expect to get overwhelming aroma or flavor. It will leave a hint of smokiness and some sweet maple behind. I spoke with a brewer over at Harpoon who made the Maple Wheat beer, and he said they used 105 gallons per 120 barrel batch. (31 gallons = 1 barrel of beer, thus maple syrup constituted about 2.8 percent of the volume.)

I've never tried it myself, but I like the idea of adding some at bottling time. Good luck. (And, BTW, here's a link to the video with the Harpoon brewer: http://youtu.be/IfOzpONtKhU